Online advertising

SIMS
 Online advertising
• Banner ads (Doubleclick)
– Standardized ad shapes with images
– Normally not related to content
• Context linked ads (Google AdSense)
– Related to content on page
• Search linked ads (Google Adwords)
– Related to search terms

SIMS
 Search linked advertising
• Very good performance
• Rapid growth but small part of market
– Americans spend 14% of media time on
Internet
– Total US advertising: grow 8% to $265
billion in 2004
– Online advertising: grow 25% to $9 billion

SIMS
 Search linked advertising
• Highly effective since it reaches people
when they are interested in a topic
• Relevant, yet not obtrusive
• Has expanded rapidly in last few years
• Expectation of further growth…

SIMS
Stock market valuation

SIMS
 How does Google work?
• Advertiser bids on search terms
– Can use Traffic Estimator to see how many
clicks they will get
• Ordering
– Overture: high bidder gets first position, 2nd
highest bidder second position, and so on
– Google: rank by bid x estimated CTR. Puts
best ads on top of page.

SIMS
 Aligning incentives
• Google sells ad impressions (views)
• Seller generally wants clicks and
ultimately conversions (purchases)
– Rank ads by how much advertisers are
willing to bid for impressions:
– Bid/click * clicks/impr = bid/impr
– But may want too many impressions
– Answer: disable if eCTR is too low

SIMS
 Payment
• Price you pay depends on bidder below you
– Overture: pay bid of bidder below you
– Google: pay minimum necessary to keep you
above that person. (AdWords discounter)
• Why not pay your actual bid?
– Would then want to cut bid to just enough more
than adv below you to keep your position
– With discounter don’t need to constantly inspect
bid landscape

SIMS
 Vickrey auction
• Similar in spirit to Vickrey auction
• One item to sell, many bidders
– English auction: person with highest value wins,
pays price equal to second highest value+ bid
increment
– Vickrey auction: award to highest bidder, pays 2nd
highest price
• Always want to truthfully reveal your value in
Vickrey auction

SIMS
 Vickrey auction
• Payoff = (v – b2) Prob[b > b2]
– If (v – b2) > 0, then want to make Prob as
large as possible
– If (v – b2) < 0, then want to make Prob as
small as possible
– Either way truthtelling is optimal
• Ad auctions don’t quite have this
property, but close…
SIMS
 Mechanism design
• This is an example of an economic
mechanism
– Agents report messages to center
– Center makes choices based on messages
– Agents make payment to center based on
messages and outcome of choices
• Problem: incentive compatibility
– Surprisingly enough, can be solved for wide
variety of cases
– Vickrey auction is relevant example
SIMS
Ads system from viewpoint of
seller
• Choose your creative text
– Standardized size
– Various optimization tips available
• Choose your keywords
– Exact, broad, phrase, negative keyword
– Follow guidelines for content
• Implement conversion tracking if
desired

SIMS
 Setting up ad, cont.
• Choose your maxCPC
– Value of a click = prob of sale * profit per
sale
– Can you Traffic Estimator to see how many
clicks you will get
– Discounter will set actual CPC to minimum
amount necessary to retain position
• Set daily budget
• Let ‘er rip
SIMS
 AdSense Program
• “Content ads”
– Use keyword matching engine to pick ads related
to content on page
– Matching algorithm tweaking to deal with multiple
content on page
– Auction needs tweaking to deal with position
– Generally lower CTRs, lower conversion
performance, adjustments made in payment

SIMS
 Technology
• Engine to match ads to queries
– Choose most relevant ads using various
criteria (plurals, synonyms, etc.)
– Returns up to 10 ads to show on a page
– Promotion policy: depends on CTR
performance and CPC
• Auction engine
– Ranks ads by CPM, records payment

SIMS
 Factors affecting revenue
Monetization Revenue
(RPM) = x ( 1K )
Queries

Revenue Clicks
= x
Clicks Queries

Revenue Queries w/ Ads Ads Clicks

= x x x
Clicks Queries Queries w/ Ads Ads

= CPC x Coverage x Depth x CTR per Ad

Price Quantity Quality

SIMS
 Increasing revenue
• Increase CPC
– Create higher conversion prob for advertiser
– Capture more value by increasing competition
• Increasing coverage
– Get more keywords
– Match more broadly (affects CTR)
• Increase depth
– Get more advertisers, more ads
• Increase CTR
– Show more relevant ads

SIMS
 Advertiser optimization
• Choose good creatives, follow tips
• Determine your value per click
– Can use Google’s conversion tracking
– Or use your own tool
• Maximum bid = maximum value per click
– Shade down depending on competition
• Minimums
– Bid: 5 cents
– CTR: around 1%

SIMS
 Syndication network
• Can syndicate search and/or ads
– AOL = both
– Ask Jeeves = ads only
– Yahoo (formerly) = search only
– MSN served by Overture/Yahoo
• Negotiated revenue share with partners
– Intensive bidding against Overture

SIMS
 Competition
• Search
– Intensive competition to improve search
– Hampered by attempts to manipulate algorithm
– Entrant has an advantage!
• Monetization
– Size of ad network
– Non-exclusive nature – a “media businesses”
– Can partner in various ways, co-opetition issues

SIMS
 Business challenges

• Scale
– Large, complex system: keeping it running and
improving it is a challenge
• Advertising guidelines
– Detection and enforcement
– Regulatory issues
• Fraud
– Credit card
– Click fraud
• Advertiser relations
SIMS